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Providing an overview of the birth and development of experimental biology, this book describes the major milestones in the discipline's history. Recounting its story from the earliest records to the 20th century, the book identifies the historical influences shaping the modern scientific method. It also places contemporary experimental biology in its social context, and considers its occasional mis-use for social or political gain. Lutz teaches biology at Florida Atlantic University.Book News, Inc.

Book Info

Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton. Authoritative and scholarly account of the history of physiology and medicine and includes illustrations that chronicle a history of theoretical and technical developments ranging from the bizarre and amusing to the macabre. For the interested reader, including natural philosophers to experimental biologists and medical scientists.

Book Description

Peter Lutz, PhD, brilliantly traverses the major milestones along the evolutionary path of biomedicine from earliest recorded times to the dawn of the 20th century. With an engaging narrative that will have you turning "just one more page" well into the night, this book revealingly demonstrates just how the modern scientific method has been shaped by the past. Along the way the reader is treated to some delightfully obscure anecdotes and a treasure trove of rich illustrations that chronicle the tortuous history of biomedical developments, ranging from the bizarre and amusing to the downright macabre. The reader will also be introduced to the major ideas shaping contemporary physiology and the social context of its development, and also gain an understanding of how advances in biological science have occasionally been improperly used to satisfy momentary social or political needs.

Foreword
Preface
List of Color Plates
1 Introduction: Science Is Improbable 1
2 The Beginnings 9
Myth and Magic 9
Mesopotamia 12
Egypt 13
3 Early Greek Science 17
The Milesians 17
The Post-Milesians 19
The Soul 23
Summary 23
4 The Age of Plato and Aristotle 25
Plato and Theory 25
Aristotle and Observation 27
5 The Alexandrian Period: The Age of the Experiment and the Textbook 35
6 The Roman Period 41
Celsus 41
Pliny 42
Galen 43
7 The Middle Ages 49
8 Islamic Science 57
9 Scholasticism and Science 65
10 Renaissance I: The Birth of Science 73
11 Renaissance II: The Birth of Experimental Biology 87
12 The New Physiology 93
Iatrochemistry 93
Iatrophysics 96
13 The Technology, New Physiology 105
The New World of the Very Small: The Microscope 105
Vital Air: The Development of Pumps and Early Theories of Respiration 110
The Thermometer and Body Heat 111
14 Reaction and Opposition 113
15 The Enlightenment and Rational Biology 119
Rational Biology 119
The Emergence of Physiology 120
16 Transition to the Nineteenth Century: Popular Science, Eccentric Science, and Romantic Physiology 137
Hunter and Spallanzani: The Last Great All-Rounders 137
The Science Museum: Collecting and Displaying 139
Romantic Physiology 142
17 Consolidation of Experimental Biology 145
Respiration 145
Metabolic Chemistry 149
Internal Secretions 151
Renal Physiology 152
Digestion 154
Benefits 158
New Fields 160
18 Evolution and Physiology 161
19 Physiology Abused 165
Gullibility 166
Reckless Intervention 168
Evolutionary Genetics and Social Repression 170
20 Today 179
What is Science? 179
Biology Today 180
References 183
List of Illustrations 189
Index 195
Biography 201